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Bill: ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion))
Details
Submitted by[?]: Liberale Partij (L)
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This bill is a resolution. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: March 2582
Description[?]:
| OOC: Hey guys, For starters, let me say that I've been really enjoying Hutori. It's a fun, reasonably balanced country with mature players. I've been really enjoying it. Kudos. The Hutori Liberal Party is right-wing when it comes to economic issues. I'm not a leftie IRL either, so I'm asking you to PLEASE not politicise what I'm about to say. I have something of a background in economics, which is part of why I tried to reach a consensus about income taxation. Looking at expenditure, however, some things are really dead wrong. I've calculated every single spending post as a percentage of GDP, and looked up references to spending levels in actual countries for the most important posts. - Education Spending is the worst - Hutori spends 1.64% of GDP on education. 4.9% is the average spending level, and advanced countries like the United States, UK and such are well above this. At present, the education system would be in a dismal state. Even the most free market sort of country WOULD have to spend about 5% on education to prevent things such as massive illiteracy. (Whether you use vouchers or whatever.) Only four Real World countries do worse (UAE, Indonesia, Equador and Equatorial Guinea.) - Healthcare spending is also dismally low: 1.64% of GDP, whereas most countries spend at least 3-6% on this. Private spending is often much, MUCH higher. 3-6% of spending doesn't buy you a communist social healthcare system, it buys you basic infrastructure to actually have a healthcare system. The great African nation of Benin and the Phillipines also spend 1.6% on healthcare. Only some extremely poor countries do worse. - Defence and Science and Technology are the only areas where Hutori is sort-of-normal. Hutori spends 1.52% of GDP on defence. Average Real World spending is at 2.5%. This puts us equal to Sweden, Peru, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Denmark and Germany (though you have to consider Hutori is far less wealthy than Sweden, Denmark or Germany). -Hutori also spends 1,29% of GDP on science and technology, whereas the weighed average for the world is 0,7%. So that's actually quite nice. This may seem like tinkering, but education and healthcare tend to be the main spending posts of governments. There may not be any "hard" consequences like loss of seats for this state of affairs, but I'll personally be forced to RP Hutori as nation with high illiteracy and people dying of easily preventable diseases unless these two areas receive a boost in spending to match sort-of-realistic levels. I know that the right-wing parties like to play tax-cutting, spending-quashing conservative heroes. But there is also such a thing as realism. At least until paragorn or NS2 comes out. >.< |
Proposals
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 12:34:17, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Hutori Conservative Council | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | But, correct me if I'm wrong - countries like the United States have a much larger population than Hutori, don't they? So our society wouldn't have the same demands on social service like health-care and education. Besides, countries like the United States are still spending far too much on healthcare and other free public services in my opinion, and it promises to get even worse if the Democrats win the upcoming election - both Clinton and Obama have visions of universal healthcare, though Obama, if I'm not mistaken, is proposing an opt out public system whilst Clinton is not. Realism is one thing, and I certainly want to aim for realism in our role-playing, but I don't think we're spending too little on public services for the size of our population, and particularly considering we have mostly private industries with minimal demands on tax revenue. |
| Date | 13:16:46, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Liberale Partij (L) | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | OOC this is exactly the sort of response I feared. And this is also a big part of why I quit particracy last time over. >.< No, I listed a *percentage of GDP*. Size doesn't come into it. In fact, smaller and poorer countries tend to have to spend MORE as a percentage of GDP on stuff like education and healthcare. Vastly more if they want to approach the same level of services. Cuba, a communist state, spends 18% of its GDP on education for example. No serious country IRL spends less than 4% of GDP on education. For overall spending levels, it matters *very* little whether Democrats or Republicans are in office. Even the most hard-line Republicans won't suddenly abolish all spending on healthcare... or cut it by a third or something like that. It'sa pipe dream You can't play England or the USA, but not pay for a similar educational standards. You can't assume people are healthy, when there aren't any facilities in place for a healthcare system. You can't really say "oh, but the market will provide" because the numbers I stated in my Opening Post are for very capitalist countries. Hutori *isn't* even a very capitalist country, in fact all of its industries and everything was state-run when I arrived! Even if it were to become a Free Market Paradise (which it isn't) then spending on education and healthcare would have to triple to match what is "normal" in the real world. I'm not talking about universal healthcare schemes. I'm talking about having a hospital outside the capital city. |
| Date | 13:43:47, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Hutori Conservative Council | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | I was never suggesting that Republicans would drastically change spending, but the system the Democrats are proposing is going to cost substantially more than what the US currently spends on health-care - this is undisputable. And I don't think that Cuba is a good example of a small country spending a large portion of its GDP - Cuba is a communist country, so of course they are going to spend a significantly greater amount on social services than a very small capitalist country. I'd like to know for interests sake how much Dubai spends on social services, for example. Having said that I can see where you're coming from. I do want to keep it realistic. Bringing our budgets more in to line with real life countries may be something I could agree to, but only if it was done taking our social welfare industries into consideration as well - for example, if we have an entirely private healthcare system, as we currently do, and the state merely subsidizes the cost of health-care for all citizens of Hutori, realistically we would not need to fund health-care to the exact same extent that countries like America and England would, with shared public\private systems. But I do find it somewhat ironic that the HLP talks about realism in areas like taxation, whilst also advocating an entirely private military... |
| Date | 13:53:12, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Liberale Partij (L) | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | OOC: Let me respond to your last point first: http://80.237.164.51/particracy/main/viewbill.php?billid=193712 -- I think you misread my proposal on the military! The proposal didn't concern the military itself, you see. Let me quote the wiki: The defense industry, also called the military industry, is comprised of government and commercial industry involved in research, development, production, and service of military equipment and facilities. It includes: - Defense contractors: business organizations or individuals that provide products or services to a defense department of a government. - The Arms industry, which produces guns, ammunition, missiles, military aircraft, and their associated consumables and systems. It can also include: - Private military contractors: private companies that provide logistics, manpower, and other expenditures for a military force. - European defence procurement, which is more or less analogous to the U.S. "military-industrial complex." |
| Date | 13:58:44, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Hutori Conservative Council | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | OOC: I concede, I did unfortunately misinterperate that legislation - sorry about that. But is there seperate legislation for military and the defence industry, or do they both come under the same umbrella? |
| Date | 14:02:02, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Groene ArbeidersPartij | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | I never really payed much attention to the spendings in our country. I even said I'd never want to go for minister of finances, because I just have no idea how those things work. I am aware though that these percentages aren't reasonable at all, and that, for good RP, we will have to adjust them. But francly, our budget system is all messed up anyway, and I never really bothered. If you want to change it, be my guest in the next cabinet. :-) |
| Date | 14:06:22, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Liberale Partij (L) | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | Alright, back to the main topic: Cuba isn't a very good comparison to Hutori - which is why I didn't mention it initially. Hutori has 200 million people, so Russia, the EU or the United States of America come closest in terms of having similar "economies of scale". Dubai isn't a very good example for the same reason, being very small and swimming in oil. Only 17% of the population is native, and the vast majority are an oppressed underclass of guest workers operating the oil industry. (42.3% of the population is Indian, 13.3% is Pakistani.) It explains why, for example, their education spending is very low. GDP is artificially high, and most people come to the country only after completing school in their native homeland. When U.S. politicians talk about privatising education and healthcare, most often this refers to introducing a voucher system. When you use vouchers or direct subsidies, the government still has to *pay* for a significant amount of the actual cost of welfare. What changes is the way the hospitals are organised and such. There is good ground for ideological disagreement on this issue, and obviously conservatives would favour a more free market approach. It doesn't, however, fundamentally alter the price of the services a lot. Three-stage chemical therapy to treat cancer using incredibly expensive machines (millions of dollars for even one machine) doesn't get 75% cheaper because of the market mechanism. Even if I believe that competition and free markets lead to lower costs, they don't make something 75% cheaper. The money has to come from somewhere. The idea of "local" income taxes is nice, but unfortunately it hasn't been implemented in the game yet. What you generally see, though, is that when a Federal or National agency cuts a policy and decentralises it, local taxes tend to go up to compensate. In the end, the Federal budget looks prettier but the average citizen still pays the same amount of tax. As long as local income taxes aren't implemented, I think it's far more realistic to just take these costs and put them in the central budget rather than jot them down as "private consumption". |
| Date | 14:09:43, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Liberale Partij (L) | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | Hutori Conservative Council: I don't think there -is- an issue to privatise the military. It's kind of extremist, don't you think? Anyway, this issue the HLP raised is about the military-industrial complex. The liberals (and, incidently, I) believe that it's best if private companies make weapons and that this happens without massive government subsidies that could be better used to buy stuff directly. Greens: Hehe. Yeah I'd like to change the budget if this is possible. I'm just hoping to create some sort of OOC level playing field first. I prefer arguing IC for ideological reasons over arguing OOC because we're playing in an entirely different country of our own imagining. |
| Date | 17:18:43, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Union | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | In all fairness, it was my recent spending bill that was passed by me, the FGGP and DNP that raised, yes raised, spending on health care and education to that level. Before we changed it, it was much, much lower. |
| Date | 17:35:11, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Conservative Union Party | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | Hutori has always RPd the wealth of Canada, so looking at Canada's budget would certainly help in this situation. |
| Date | 20:23:31, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Democratic Nationalists Party | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | And incase the Liberal Party hadnt noticed we are in the middle of a war here (or have been, I havent checked the forum yet, so it might be over as I post this :P ). Both sides are doing their best to win the war for their cause. They are more concerned with how much is being spent on Military or Defense. I dont think the people care too much either now you mention it. Most adults are helping the war effort and most children are out of school owing to military engagement over most of the country. |
| Date | 20:28:48, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Union | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | Indeed, DNP, you have a good point there. We should probably address all these issues after the war is over, so we can lower defense spending and increase spending in other areas, in order to rebuild the nation. |
| Date | 20:33:30, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Liberale Partij (L) | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | Defence spending at the moment is at the level for a peacetime European democracy though. It doesn't reflect a war footing! I'd not recommend lowering defence spending further from its current level, unless you want a really dismal and pacifist military. Certainly you can't finance nukes and fancy bioweapons from what we have now. More to the point though: http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/81-582-XIE/2003001/highlights.htm Canada. In 1999-2000, expenditure on education represented 6.6% of the Canadian GDP. According to OECD, Canada ranked first among the G-7 countries in 1999 with respect to the percentage of the GDP allocated to education, followed by the United States. The territories and the small provinces allocated a higher percentage of their GDP to education than the large provinces. In 2001, governments as a whole in Canada spent 15% of their total expenditure on education compared to 17% for health. Until 2000, they had spent more on education than health. Between 1997-1998 and 2001-2002, public expenditure on education grew 2% at the elementary-secondary level and 9% at the postsecondary level. Private funding also plays an important role in education. In 2001-2002, 7% of all expenditure at the elementary-secondary level and 27% at the postsecondary level came from private sources. In 2000, 43% of households incurred education expenses, spending an average of $1,946. Tuition fees at universities increased during the 1990s. They almost doubled for undergraduate programs between 1990-1991 and 2001-2002, rising from an average of $1,806 to $3,585 (in 2001 constant dollars). Between 1990-1991 and 1999-2000, student tuition and other non-government revenue increased from 32% to 45% of total university revenue. Most of the expenditure at the elementary-secondary level is on teachers’ salaries, which accounted for about three-quarters of all expenditures in 1999-2000. Salaries of university and college faculty fell slightly in 2001 constant dollars during the 1990s. In 1999-2000, female university full and associate professors earned 95% of what their male counterparts earned. In Canada, 1995 graduates who borrowed from government student loan programs owed on average just over $10,000 at graduation, one-third more than 1990 graduates. In all jurisdictions, debt levels were higher and repayment rates slower for the 1995 than the 1990 graduates. College graduates from the class of 1995 owed less at graduation than university graduates and had faster rates of repayment. --- In other words, I'm not kidding about the need to spend more, even if a significant chunk of education and health is privately funded. |
| Date | 07:40:10, May 22, 2008 CET | From | Hutori Conservative Council | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | Response to the HLP: HLP: "When U.S. politicians talk about privatising education and healthcare, most often this refers to introducing a voucher system." - Yes, and the voucher system is essentially what I implimented recently in my private health-care act, in that health-care is now subsidised for all. There's no option for a voucher system but this is the closest I could find. But just assume that the subsidies I legislated for are subsidies to the people rather than subsidies to hospitals directly. I should have stated that in the legislation's description, I might fix that up. HLP: "When you use vouchers or direct subsidies, the government still has to *pay* for a significant amount of the actual cost of welfare. What changes is the way the hospitals are organised and such" - Yes, the government still does have to pay substantial amounts in the form of subsidies or vouchers in a private health-care system with either of these two systems in place. But the costs are not quite as high in a voucher\private system as they are in a shared public\private system (because, in most cases of a shared system, the government ends up having to subsidize private hospitals as well, to a lesser degree). Eliminating the public health-care system also eliminates alot of the costs. Whilst vouchers and subsidies will still go towards the salaries of hospital staff, maintenance of hospitals, medicine, equipment, etc, it is unlikely that the overall cost of the private hospital\voucher system would be equal to the overall costs of spending on a shared public\private system, with an entirely state-owned and funded public system. Having said that, it would still be a substantial cost, realistically, and I suppose, realistically, our budget spending on health-care should still be higher, even though we do have a private healthcare\voucher system in place. HLP: "Even if I believe that competition and free markets lead to lower costs, they don't make something 75% cheaper. The money has to come from somewhere" - Absolutely. And it's still coming from the government. An entirely private system with no subsidies or vouchers would be absolutely bizzarre, and I don't think even the most radical capitalists would realistically suggest that. And by no means would the cost of services ever be 75 percent cheaper in a private system, granted. But in a private system with vouchers, as we have implimented, the government would no longer be covering the entire costs of hospitals as in a public system - the entire salaries of hospital staff, the entire maintainance cost of hospitals, the entire cost of medicines and equipment. They would be generously subsidizing them indirectly by allocating vouchers to individuals. So the costs of services would not diminish by 75 percent, of course. But, realistically, the costs of health-care services may diminish marginally in a private system, and these savings will be reflected in the budget. I'm not saying that our current level of spending on health-care is realistic, but I'm saying it wouldn't necessarily be as high as Americas health-care spending, or God forbid, Canada's health-care spending. We still have to take into account the differences between our countries' healthcare system and the systems of the afore mentioned countries when calculating a reasonable and realistic cost for our health-care spending. The cost will not be half of theirs or anything, but it will inevitably be lower, even if marginally. HLP: "The idea of "local" income taxes is nice, but unfortunately it hasn't been implemented in the game yet. What you generally see, though, is that when a Federal or National agency cuts a policy and decentralises it, local taxes tend to go up to compensate. In the end, the Federal budget looks prettier but the average citizen still pays the same amount of tax. As long as local income taxes aren't implemented, I think it's far more realistic to just take these costs and put them in the central budget rather than jot them down as "private consumption". - Yes, the idea of local income taxes is appealling, and we would like to try and impliment it in some form, but unfortunately the game is not set out in a way which really allows for this. As for your comments on the average citizen still paying a relatively similar amount if there were local income taxes - this may be true, but they would be paying for services that are of more value to them on a local or state scale, and more relevant to their localized needs. Different states obviously have different demands on social services, and this should be reflected by different income taxes according to these demands. With a federal income tax, . If we are going to impose an income tax, we should at least ensure that it is responsive to the local needs of states, rather than on some national scale, where tax-payers may be paying income tax for services in a state on the other side of the country, on top of their own. The reality is, a centralized income tax is far-removed and out of touch with local, community and state's needs. I want to make the income tax relevant for locals. I want to ensure that our taxation system is responsible, rather than some big, money-grabbing centralized system where tax-payers will inevitably pay a third of their income to fund social services they never use. I am interested in de-centralizing the tax-system and allowing citizens to actually see the benefits of their taxes at work on a state level, rather than flushing money through a big, national government, perhaps never even getting a return on their investment. I'll try and figure out a way of implimenting this, but it's going to be hard :P |
| Date | 23:41:41, May 22, 2008 CET | From | Groene ArbeidersPartij | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | I really think we shouldn't try to compare ourselves with countries here on earth on numbers such as population or GDP, or on statistics such as the budget used for defense. We have no idea of the value of money on Terra, nor is there an equality in numbers of countries, nor in total population. If we just make sure our income and our expenses remains equal, that all spending is proportional; in line with the kind of country we wish to be, and that we all try to make more efforts to this, for example, that we mention exact numbers when we talk about subsidies in bills, that we put economic measures such as 'all public transport free' in debate first, etcetera. Just proposing.. |
| Date | 05:52:43, May 25, 2008 CET | From | Liberale Partij (L) | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | I totally agree with the FGGP there. |
| Date | 06:51:44, May 25, 2008 CET | From | Liberale Partij (L) | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | I usually just withdraw bills like these, but this has been a useful exchange so I wish to preserve it. |
| Date | 06:53:24, May 25, 2008 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Union | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | Well we can all abstain from this, doesn't have an actual point. |
| Date | 08:21:45, May 25, 2008 CET | From | Hutori Conservative Council | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | But what would be the implications of this legislation on policy? If this passes, is the HLP going to propose a budget according to the figures outlined in this legislation? I'm not entirely sure what I'm voting for here :P |
| Date | 09:12:07, May 25, 2008 CET | From | Liberale Partij (L) | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | Hehe. It's mostly an OOC bill, though it'd be nice to see who agrees with the general sentiment of the thread. |
| Date | 09:16:11, May 25, 2008 CET | From | Hutori Conservative Council | To | Debating the ((Tabled: spending awareness discussion)) |
| Message | In that case I agree with what I see to be the main thrust of the thread, which I believe to be the increase in realism of our country and government. So I'll vote in favour. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||||
| yes |
Total Seats: 214 | |||||
| no |
Total Seats: 23 | |||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 64 |
| Random fact: It is forbidden to impersonate a player or Moderator. |
| Random quote: "Man is by nature a political animal." - Aristotle |